


Pumpkin Ouija

by wneleh



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Gen, Halloween, Teenagers, a little blood, a little smarm, okay a lot of smarm, prompt: Carving jack-o-lanterns, tw: vehicle accident aftermath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2016-11-05
Packaged: 2018-08-29 05:16:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8476768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wneleh/pseuds/wneleh
Summary: Link opens the screen and lets Rhett hand him two pumpkins, a pumpkin carving kit (with eight essential tools and fifty patterns new for 1994), and a couple of votive candles.“We don’t do jack-o-lanterns for Halloween in my family,” Link says.“It’s not Halloween,” Rhett says.  “It’s November 1.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> What's real: Rhett and Link have talked about Link running his pickup truck, laden with friends, off the road on Halloween night their junior year of high school - one version is [Our Stupid Near Death Experience](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtNzvZIVxgU&index=10&list=PLzyv98zuRuA8S_wYoHGlAwUpe9pvMaYQZ). And, Link's final line is a reference to [The Awkward Double Date](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbip554-rfU). 
> 
> They've never, to my knowledge, talked much about the aftermath of the accident.

It’s after midnight already – 12:16 AM, according to Link’s overly-enthusiastic new digital clock radio – and his grandfather has finally left, and his mother has finally sent him to bed, so now he’s lying in the dark at 12:17 AM on the worst Halloween night of his life – maybe the worst night of his life PERIOD but, really, he’d need to give that some thought - but when he closes his eyes he hears Amber screaming about blood and it doesn’t matter that, for Amber at least, the blood was egg. Other kids had bled.

It’s 12:18 AM on the night he’d almost killed them all. Missed the turn, hit the ditch, the three of them in the cab contained at least, though Rhett’s hard head had destroyed his windshield, the eight in back tossed everywhere.

12:19 AM. And some of the people whose houses they’d egged were saying they wanted them charged with vandalism.

Did it matter that, for the egging part at least, he was only an accessory?

Would his mom even let him get his truck fixed? Would his monthly insurance payment go so high that there’d be no way he could cover it? Would his mom let him take an afterschool job at the new Walmart? And how would he get there without a truck?

12:20. Egg-cessory?

“Link?”

He thinks it’s his mom at first, but then he sees something in the window, his good-seven-feet-off-the-ground window, though the clock digits aren’t casting enough light to tell what it is.

He flips on his bedside lamp, which makes the dark even darker, but illuminates, low up against the screen, a pumpkin. 

He checks the time involuntarily – it’s 12:21 AM on the maybe-worst night of his life and there’s a pumpkin outside his window, being held up by two large hands.

“Damn, Rhett,” he says.

Then Link’s opening the screen and taking in two larger-than-a-soccer-ball, smaller-than-a-beach-ball pumpkins, then a pumpkin carving kit (with eight essential tools and 50 patterns new for 1994, $4.99, suitable for ages 6 and up), then a couple of votive candles, and then at 12:22 AM Rhett pulls himself in, somehow still having some strength in his arms. 

“We don’t do jack-o-lanterns for Halloween in my family,” Link says.

Rhett, now busy opening Link’s closet and taking out a spare blanket and spreading it on the floor and then opening the tool kit, takes until 12:24 to respond. “It’s not Halloween,” he says. “It’s November 1.”

All Saints Day, a Catholic holiday, and Link can never remember whether they’re not supposed to really get too much into Halloween because of the “Day of the Devil” part or because it’s not something good Protestants do (though the Methodists have a haunted house every year) but he knows none of this is going to matter to Rhett, who doesn’t take too much prompting to get into The Deep Spiritual Truths Of All Faith Traditions Including Catholics Definitely And Maybe Even Socialist Congregationalists, and that’s not something Link’s really up for at 12:25 AM when they’ve got a French quiz in nine hours.

“Got any bowls for the guts?” Rhett asks.

No, but he’s got a waste paper basket.

So at 12:27 AM on a Holiday Not His Own, Rhett shows Link how to cut the top off a pumpkin – it’s a lot easier than it looks, thanks to the tools Rhett’s brought – then they pass the sturdier-than-it-looks orange plastic scraper back and forth, loosening the innards so that they can scoop them out by hand. Rhett’s read up on pumpkin history and horticulture, and after assuring Link there’s no sense saving any of the insides except maybe the seeds, he monologues about cooking varieties and carving varieties until Link’s got his pumpkin just about scooped out and surprisingly dry inside.

12:48. It’s probably safe to go wash his hands (and forearms, and left cheek which also somehow got pumpkinated…)

Now cleanish, Link flips through the patterns. Actually using one of them to carve from, as illustrated on the back of the booklet, looks too complicated for a jack-o-lantern they’re not going to ever show anyone because it’s November 1 after all, and not a skill he can probably absorb at 12:53 AM anyway, but Link gets the gist of what he wants to do. Since cutting the top off was so easy he’s surprised by how hard it is to cut the eyes just like he wants, and he snaps the handle off the longest, thickest saw blade while trying to do a curve, but they’ve got others that turn out are better suited for fine work, and now he knows to be careful.

Rhett, now also mostly depumpkined, has stopped talking, and is thoroughly absorbed in what he’s doing, and Link notices that he’s using a pattern, but not one out of the booklet.

It’s 1:08 AM when Link is satisfied and scoots back so that he can get a good look at his handiwork.

And, 

Damn.

It’s 1:09 AM and pumpkins are worse than ouija boards because

Because those eyes, that mouth

Because he’s conjured the devil.

He tries to scream, scream like Amber is screaming inside his head, but he can’t, so he sits pressed up against the side of his bed and stares at the devil in his bedroom and now Rhett is humming and Amber is screaming and his eyes are so blurry and stinging so much he can’t even read the numbers on his overly-enthusiastic new digital clock radio.

“Link? Link?”

Rhett’s now shaking his shoulder and Link is both afraid and hoping Rhett will hug him or something but instead Rhett hands him a tissue from the box Link keeps on a shelf in his nightstand. Link is protective of those tissues because he doesn’t ever want to run out of them and not know it, but he really can’t argue that he doesn’t need one right now. 

“You hurt?” Rhett asks and Link shakes his head.

“Then what’s wrong?”

“I can’t – stop – remembering…” he manages. “I – thought – accidents – gave – you – amnes – amnes – “ but he can’t get the word out.

“Amnesia?” Rhett supplies.

“I KNOW THE DAMN WORD!” Link snaps, much more loudly than he should.

“Don’t get mad at me, I’m making you a present,” Rhett says, getting back to work.

And Link’s really NOT mad at Rhett, he’s mad at a bunch of things and people right now, first and foremost himself, but Rhett’s being nothing but Rhett-like, so Link dries his eyes while Rhett finishes up his pumpkin, then sets in one of the votive candles and lights it with a wooden match he’d brought – this amazes Link, that Rhett even remembered matches, and ones that you can do something with no less – then flicks out the lamp and settles next to Link against the bed.

“Who does it look like?” Rhett asks.

Rhett’s done the most amazing thing. Instead of carving holes like Link did for his devil pumpkin that he’s still actually REALLY uncomfortable about, Rhett’s shaved the front wall of the pumpkin super-thin, if Link’s getting things right, from the inside, then peeled away bits of pumpkin on the outside, so that the light of the candle defines a face. Eyes, lips, and facial features – the outline of a nose, even hints of cheekbones – are dark, so the face is kind of an inverse of a regular carved pumpkin…. 

Anyway, the precision, and the effect, is incredible. A swoop of light outlines the upturned brim of a hat, and a short beard graces the chin. The eyes are level, the mouth is straight and not quite smiling….

“It’s Merle!” Link exclaims. “That’s amazing! Where’d you find a Merle Haggard pattern?”

“Found a Kris Kristofferson and made some mods.”

“Wow.”

The candle’s light flickers and then vanishes, leaving them only the glow of the digital clock. 1:21 AM. Link stands and flicks his bedside lamp back on. “I think you need to put a hole in the lid,” he says. “Let in some oxygen.” 

“D’oh!” said Rhett, grabbing, not the fine saw Link had been using, but the longer, thicker blade that Link had snapped the handle off of earlier. Link is still digesting the implications of this when Rhett yelps and drops it.

Eyes wide, Rhett turns toward Link, his left hand holding the skin between his right thumb and forefinger. “Tissue!” he says, but that is NOT going to happen because apparently blood can make Link feel like he’s going to pass out even if he’s already sitting down.

Rhett’s blood, Amber’s blood, blood everywhere, and Rhett is going to just have to deal with this himself because Link’s head is now on the floor but maybe this isn’t going to work because Rhett seems to be sobbing.

That’s weird.

Rhett’s leaning over him still holding one hand with the other and blood is seeping out past his fingers. Link sits and grabs the box of tissues, then takes Rhett’s hands and peels the left away, then starts dabbing at the cut. There really isn’t that much blood, Rhett was just doing a bad job at controlling it.

“It’s not blood, it’s egg,” Link says. 

This was maybe the funniest thing he’s ever said, but Rhett is still crying, so Link grabs tape from the lower drawer of the nightstand, then secures a wad of tissues in place over the cut, the teenie tiny cut. 

He gets Rhett up and into his bed, then slides in beside him, switches the lamp off, notes the time (1:24), pulls up the covers, and reaches for Rhett’s undamaged left hand. Rhett’s gotten himself under control, thank goodness.

“Rough day,” Link says.

Rhett says nothing.

“I think my jack-o-lantern is an actual instantiation of the Lord of Darkness. We’re going to have to deal with that tomorrow somehow,” Link says, “though maybe it can wait until after school.”

Rhett says nothing.

“It sure will be nice when they make this road four lanes,” Link says.

Rhett rolls so that his face is buried in Link’s shoulder and laughs and laughs.

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired to write this by RazleDazle's take on the same incident, [October Moments](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8359456/chapters/19149310).
> 
> As always, I welcome all comments - don't feel the need to be constructive - here or to helenw@murphnet.org.


End file.
